10.15.2012

Soups, stews and buffalo chick pea chili, oh my!

When I first got hip to Pinterest, I went a little wild and pinned SO many recipes I don't think I'll ever actually make it through them all unless I made 15 meals a day. So after I got over my pinning obsession, I went through and decided to keep the recipes I was really going to make and to get rid of the ones that sounded good but I knew wouldn't be happening in this lifetime.

If you follow me on Pinterest, you might notice I don't pin a lot of actual vegan recipes. Instead, I pin all the food that sounds ridiculously amazing and decide I'd prefer to do my own vegan version of it. (This helps a lot considering I have a serious issue trying to follow recipes anyway).

When I came across a recipe for buffalo chicken chili, I knew it was something that had to be veganized. Aside from the chicken part, there really wasn't a whole lot of anything special this recipe needed. And while there are a plethora of awesome vegan chicken options, I decided against using the mock protein and opted to use chick peas instead. (We tend to use chick peas in place of chicken and lentils in place of ground beef for most of our recipes).

The best part about this chili isn't just that you can put it in your slow cooker and forget about it, but that you can get super fancy if you want and set out a whole smorgasbord of topping options to garnish this utterly amazing chili with. I highly, highly recommend some ranch vegan sour cream, but you could get crazy and add some cheddar shreds, chives or "blue cheese" crumbles too.

Buffalo chick pea chili(serves 8-10)Ingredients:
1 32 oz container of no-chicken stock (vegetable stock will totally work here too)
3 cups of water (you can add a little more/less depending on what consistency you like)
2 15 oz cans of diced tomatoes (or you can be old fashioned and dice your own, whatev)
1 15 oz can of tomato sauce
1 15 oz can of kidney beans
1 15 oz can chick peas (we went low or no sodium for all of the above canned goods)
8 oz of your favorite pasta
8 oz frozen cauliflower
1 16 oz bag sweet white corn
1 large onion diced up
1/4 cup minced garlic
3 TBS chili powder
2 TBS cumin
1/2 cup buffalo sauce (or more to taste, we picked this up at our local health foods store, but you can make your own simple version by mixing your favorite hot sauce with some butter, a tiny bit of sugar and a splash of ketchup if you want to make it fun)

Directions:
Boil your pasta on the stove (yeah, the old fashioned way).
Turn your crock pot on high and dump the no-chicken stock, tomatoes, tomato sauce, kidney beans, chick peas and buffalo sauce in.
Dice up carrots, onion and peppers and toss them into the crock pot. Add garlic, chili powder and cumin. Toss in the pasta once it's done and cook all these on high, stirring occasionally (every 15-20 minutes) for an hour. Cook on low for another hour.
Serve with your favorite chili topping!

*I plan on doing a recipe during dinner week which utilizes dry beans in the slow cooker, I'm sure you'll all be drooling in anticipation until then!*

you list the 8 oz frozen cauliflower 1 16 oz bag sweet white corn but never say what to do with them ??? and then you say "Dice up carrots, onion and peppers and toss them into the crock pot." but not mention of these ingredients was mentioned before? ???Im in the middle of attempting to make this and if it turns out to be crap, Im gonna be super sad :(fiiiiiix!